Even though it’s the most important news event ever to happen in Laurel, the attempted assassination of presidential candidate George Wallace on May 15, 1972, at the Laurel Shopping Center tends to fade from memory or become distorted after so many years.
So it was a welcome gift to The Laurel History Boys when Tony Law, whose father was Robert Law, a Public Information Officer with the Prince George’s County Police during the 1970s, donated his father’s folder about the Wallace shooting. The folder contains an amazing amount of newspaper clippings and some internal memos about the event.
It was interesting to see all the different local newspapers represented in the clippings. All but the Washington Post and the Baltimore Sun are no longer being published. According to news reports at the time, a crowd of 1,000 to 1,500 attended Wallace’s rally. In those pre-Internet days, people relied on print and TV news media for information. The clippings remind us of that information provided by newspapers.
The day after the shooting, the Washington Post reported: “A young assailant dressed in red, white and blue shot Gov. George C. Wallace of Alabama yesterday in the midst of a Laurel campaign rally, leaving him paralyzed in both legs. Surrounded by a crowd of 1,000, the 52-year-old governor was shot at close range following his speech at the Laurel Shopping Center, about 14 miles northeast of Washington.”
There were three other victims with gunshot wounds, as reported by the Laurel News Leader: “The injured were identified as Capt. Eldred C. Dothard, an Alabama state trooper with Wallace’s protection unit; Dora Thompson, a Wallace campaign worker, who lives in Rogers Heights; and Nicholas Zarvos, a Secret Service agent.”
The Post also reported that Secret Service Agent Zarvos was recuperating from surgery to remove a bullet “that entered the right side of his neck, passed through the voice box and lodged in his left jaw. Doctors said there was no damage to speech.” The Post also reported that Leland Memorial Hospital received two bomb threats while Zarvos was a patient.
The PG County News ran an eyewitness account: “Then there was bedlam. ... There was confusion everywhere. The crowd had become strangely silent. Then they lifted him into the back of the station wagon, then pulled him out when the ambulance arrived and nosed its way through the crowd in the mammoth shopping center parking lot.”
George Mangum, who was the master of ceremonies for the Wallace rally, is quoted in the Washington Daily News addressing the crowd from the podium as the ambulance with Wallace is leaving the scene: “Get back! Get back! Are you for him or against him? If you’re for him, then help us move this crowd away! God help you people!”
The mood of the crowd at the Laurel Shopping Center was captured in the Laurel News Leader’s reporting of the shooting, which almost filled the entire newspaper that week: “A group of long-haired teen-aged youths who had witnessed the shooting didn’t think that Wallace had incited the audience to anger or hatred, in spite of the fact that he had stepped on many toes. In their own case, they had no animosity toward Wallace, although he was ‘down’ on long-hairs.”
The Washington Evening Star quickly zeroed in on Wallace’s assailant: Arthur Bremer. “The accused assailant of Gov. George C. Wallace is an unusually taciturn young man from a working class background in Milwaukee who was given to bursts of eccentric behavior in recent months. ‘Nobody could talk to him, said [his brother] Roger. We never knew much about him.’”
Later, the Bowie News reported on Bremer’s indictments: “After about 20 minutes of deliberation, a state grand jury for Prince George’s County handed down four indictments on 24 separate charges against the alleged assailant of Gov. George C. Wallace yesterday, including four counts of attempted murder, a crime which is punishable by death.” (The death penalty in Maryland was abolished in 2013.)
Under the headline “Signs of Trouble Preceded Wallace Attack,” the Prince George’s Post revealed what happened earlier that day: “Warnings of trouble came at Wheaton Plaza in Montgomery County when a surly crowd threw tomatoes and paper airplanes at Wallace and shouted obscenities at him. The Secret Service agent assigned to him by law warded off the paper airplanes and held up a piece of cardboard as a shield as they hurried him to his car to get him to Laurel in time.”
During the wait for Bremer’s trial, newspapers reported on every detail of his life. The Evening Star reported that for the weeks prior to the shooting, the unemployed Bremer “had been living in his car.” The paper also detailed what authorities found when his car was searched, including two books: “RFK Must Die, by Robert Kaiser, which questions the investigation of the killing of Robert F. Kennedy, and one on Sirhan B. Sirhan, Kennedy’s assassin.”
The Star also disclosed that the search of Bremer’s car yielded “a nearly 100-page journal in the handwriting of Arthur H. Bremer indicating that the Milwaukee youth went to Canada last month intending to kill President Nixon.”
When he was taken into custody, Bremer caused problems at the Baltimore County Jail in Towson. According to the Post, Bremer “has reportedly shouted obscenities against Wallace and spat at FBI agents standing guard. ... Bremer’s frequent and intense cries and shouts have been enough to keep some inmates awake at night.”
Two months after the shooting, the PG County News reported that “Arthur Herman Bremer is pleading not guilty by reason of insanity to four counts of assault with intent to murder. Prince George’s County Circuit Court Judge Ralph W. Powers has ordered Bremer to Clifton T. Perkins state mental hospital for examination, over defense objections that compelling a defendant to submit to examination is a violation of his constitutional rights not to incriminate himself.”
But just a few days later, the Washington Daily News reported that “the suspect is not cooperating with doctors ‘on the advice of counsel’.”
After Bremer was found guilty and sentenced to 63 years in prison, his father, according to the Washington Star, said, “The State of Maryland has railroaded my boy to jail.”
In September 1972, the Post reported that “A three-judge Prince George’s Circuit Court panel struck 10 years” from Bremer’s original 63-year sentence. Bremer testified to the panel, “I ask you to forget the obvious political gratuities. This is a court of law. The sentence is distortedly severe and harsh. As opposed to a recipient of justice, I have been a victim of a grave injustice.”
Many of the photos used by newspapers across the country were taken by Joe Kundrat, a 1970 graduate of Laurel High School. Joe attended the rally with his mother, and they were right up front when the shooting took place. Joe’s photos were bought by the Associated Press and other media organizations. He aimed his camera under a policeman’s arms to get a photo of the shooter, Arthur Bremer, being wrestled to the ground. His mother went to the aid of the Secret Service agent who was shot in the neck and fell near her. (To see more of Joe’s photos, go to our website (www.laurelhistory.com) and scroll down to “History Contributors.”)
Kevin Leonard is a founding member of the Laurel History Boys and a two-time winner of the Maryland Delaware District of Columbia Press Association Journalism Award.
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